I have never been tested for HIV, mainly because I never had any reason to suspect I had the virus. But, reading this, I guess I have to admit to myself that I wouldn’t have wanted to give the impression that I engaged in the types of high-risk behaviors associated with HIV/AIDs. Still, if my doctor tried to insist that I have the test done, I don’t think I would respond well to that. How about you?
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BooMan
Martin Longman a contributing editor at the Washington Monthly. He is also the founder of Booman Tribune and Progress Pond. He has a degree in philosophy from Western Michigan University.
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My oldest son, who is now 25, should probably be tested. He isn’t high risk because of his sexual activity (I hope) but he was diagnosed with leukemia when he was three and while he didn’t receive much transfused blood, I’m sure he was exposed to any number of possible contaminants.
The stigma of AIDS is less than it used to be, but we do need to manage and maintain HIV as much as possible. And I’d like to see more attention paid to vaccinations in general, since whooping cough and other childhood diseases are trying to make a comeback.
Tested.
Because I love my wife.
I’ve been tested twice. Once on my own, and once when I was applying for the Peace Corps. Negative. Everyone should be tested, regardless of risk.
If my doctor wanted to test me and the fact of testing was kept private, i.e. NOT going into Blue Cross’ records, I’d not object.
If the government mandated mandatory testing of everyone, it’s totally OK with me, but I can see that many people would want to keep the RESULTS private.
We have so much medical privacy that my spouse has trouble finding out my test results even when I sign waivers, but my insurance company and employer who pays for it has free reign to poke around. That’s just so wrong.
I was tested regularly when I had multiple sexual partners, and had no problem with it – like being tested for any other STD, it’s common sense, and I was completely out in my life as bisexual so any stigma attached to it was one I already drew.
However, making it compulsory in any way is just idiotic. In my case, I’ve been with my same partner for 18 years, we were both tested well after we became monogamous, and I’m quite certain neither us of have done anything that would put us at risk since then. Requiring a test for the sizable number of people in that sort of circumstance – especially since it’s not cheap and there’s often a co-pay even for people who have insurance – is wasteful and foolish.
In general, one of the reasons our health care system has out-of-control costs is its hyperwillingness to run tests of all kinds. The last thing we need is a mandate for another one.
As long as most medical bills are through our employers or insurance companies, no test should be mandatory. There is no privacy with a corporation. If they can use it, they will. Anybody who thinks their medical records are private forever, is a fool.
.
My blood is tested any time I go donate a pint. No cost, just a pint of blood and no insurance company get the information. Its a cheap way to find out, if you want to know.
True. Giving blood will get you a free, hopefully anonymous, test for all sorts of stuff.
Just remember that if you’re a man and you’ve had any kind of sexual activity with another man since the 1970’s (and that doesn’t necessarily make you a ho-mo-sexyewul or anything,) you have to lie about it if you want to give blood. Why would that be when there’s no social stigma anymore? Beats me.
Not sure but lying to them might also be some kind of crime.
Was in my 20’s when AIDS hit the mainstream national news media in the mid to early 80’s. It really didn’t seem to be much of a concern at that time to most everyone I knew. Pregnancy and the usual STD’s were still the major concern. But once it became more understood about the latency of the disease I have to admit that in the back of my mind there was a small quivering of nervousness. It was not until sometime in the mid-90’s, when I had to be tested because I was buying a life insurance policy, that I came face to face with the whole idea of AIDS. Fortunately, the results were negative. But it would be a lie to say that I was not nervous as hell waiting for those results.
First time I was ever tested, it was at a public health clinic that did free anonymous tests and counseling if you turned up positive. This was, of course, when there was no effective treatment and it meant you were going to die.
The test took TWO WHOLE WEEKS to come back. Damn, that was the scariest two weeks of my life. I didn’t have much to fear but you never know… I was in my 20’s and sexually active. Safe, but active. So, you never know…
I know what you mean. Back when they started framing it in the manner of, “When you have unprotected sex, you are basically having sex with everyone that the other person has ever had unprotected sex with”, it really did get you thinking.
And, like you, it took a couple of weeks to get those results on my test. And while I knew the odds were very, very small; it was still very nerve wracking.
That linked article actually made me mad. It was obviously written by someone who’s never been without health insurance and never feared the possible consequences of a positive result or even the red flag of wanting to know if you’re infected.
This fear has nothing to do with being “prudish” or ashamed of yourself as they suggest, but of being practical and avoiding being discriminated against whenever you seek health or life insurance for the rest of your life.
The social stigma may be gone, or at least we like to tell ourselves that. The author of that piece also likes to pretend that the insurance industry has ever cared about social stigma instead of money.
As long as we have insurance companies deciding our fate and no true guarantee of coverage at the same price as everyone else pays, they will always seek to reduce their risks. And they won’t publish what they’re discriminating against.
Beware. Get tested and know your status. But do it in a way that is anonymous and can not be traced back to you. This goes for all sorts of infectious diseases.
Discouraging people from being tested for diseases and not keeping records is, of course, terrible for public health. But we don’t have “public” health here. That would be socialist. We have healthcare and insurance “industries” here. Capitalism RULEZ!
I have never been tested for HIV, mainly because I never had any reason to suspect I had the virus.
Remember Arthur Ashe? Yes, the tennis great. He died of AIDS, I believe. How did he get it? Blood transfusion. Is the Red Cross’ test fool-proof now? I don’t know. At any rate, given how the health system worked in this country, I wouldn’t get tested under any employer sponsored plan.
Duh.
Do not take its hype as reality.
Please.
HIV?
Keep your sexual apparatus out of the polluted sexual waters.
Believe nothing you are told.
If it appears in the PermaGov news apparatus it is at best hype, at worst an outright lie.
DO NOT BE STAMPEDED!!!
Honor above all.
AG
Some very basic facts from my previous employer:
Fast facts about HIV testing and counselling
I was 19 when AIDS first made headlines. I was dating my first girlfriend and she had only slightly more sexual experience than me. We later married and then divorced.
My next sexual partner was a virgin and she insisted I get tested. In fact, we both got tested. Looking back, that seems silly. The chances that either of us had been exposed was pretty close to zero. We later married and then divorced some years later.
At that point, I’d been married to and divorced to the only two women I’d ever slept with. Over the next ten years or so, I got fully intimate with maybe ten women and partly intimate with maybe ten more. At one point, I was dating this extremely sexual, extremely hot and extremely experienced woman. She and I both got tested. She just about died from anxiety waiting for her test results. We were both clean.
Not sure if I’ve been tested since then. Perhaps I should be though I’ve not been doing anything all that dangerous. I’m married again, this time a woman with a somewhat unusual history. She was afraid of getting too sexual with guys in her high school and college days, and then she became a lesbian for ten years. So I’m the first guy she’s had vaginal sex with and that probably makes her pretty low risk. I don’t feel the need to be tested but would be totally willing to do it.
If I’m reading this right, on a population of 300M you’d end up sending 4.5M people for (expensive) secondary testing and you’d end up telling 1200 people who didn’t have HIV that they did. Meanwhile, you’d end up telling 200,000 people who don’t know they have HIV that they do. You’d miss 60 people who do have HIV but got a false negative.
Well, except you’d probably miss a good number of the 200,000 hidden infections because of their circumstances.
Just for the hell of it?
Phooey.
And all the other STDs?
And any other thing you can test for?
Like I said.
Phooey.
A ludicrous, disgusting, and infuriating waste of medical resources with the obvious intent to manipulate public opinion.
From the perspective of “public health”, testing should be widespread, and results a matter of public record.
(yeah, public health stuff does seem rather fascist. I think that’s because we [as a species] are at war with some bacteria, viruses, parasites, etc. If we lose, they eat us)
We really need to ramp up the education, and protection against discrimination, before going all out in the war on HIV, however.
Simple solution: go donate blood.
Part of the blood donation process is that they have to screen you for certain issues (hepatitis, HIV/AIDS, low-iron, etc…) and if you come up positive for any of these, they will reject your blood and notify you of your condition.
It’s free, and if your blood is accepted, then you will know that you did something positive.
Similarly, if you ever apply for a whole life policy you can fully expect the same tests to be completed.